There will be a Submarine Regatta held by the SubComMi at the San Francisco Fly Casting Club Ponds this September 25th &26th. The regatta will be submarines only and will no longer be called the Millatary Ship Regatta. Please email me any questions, [email]Anderboat@aol.com.[/email]

anderboat wrote:There will be a Submarine Regatta held by the SubComMi at the San Francisco Fly Casting Club Ponds this September 25th &26th. The regatta will be submarines only and will no longer be called the Millatary Ship Regatta. Please email me any questions, [email=Anderboat@aol.com.]Anderboat@aol.com.[/email]

What's the matter? The surface folks don't want to play with us bubbleheads?

In actual fact, Tom was able to do a little creative sleuthing and discovered that the surface boys did not have exclusive 'rights' to the ponds. After that it was comparatively easy (easier?) to arrange for sub-only use of a pond!

The surface guys do not even use those ponds, these are for the fly casting club there, and they were the problem, those old codgers did not want their space violated. The ponds belong to the city of San Francisco and are maintained with public funds. Apperently Tom got to the right person for approval, the SFMYC just did not want to participate in a regatta.

The only time models boats go in there is when the regatta was held and a few times when the Spreckles Lake was drained so that the SFPD could find a murder weapon that was supposedly thrown in that lake.The SFMYC is a strange bunch of folks, actually only a few of them have warships, they are mainly sailboats and a variety of subjects from tugboats to stuff that I can't really put into a catagory.

Also, the success of that regatta did not happen by submarines alone, surface ship registration has accounted for over 1/2 of the attendance at those regattas.

I sell 16 surface ship hulls for every sub I sell, and I still sell more sub hulls then the other guys.

Having a military ship regatta is still about the only way to make sure that all expenses are met. I know of at least 12 guys that will come with their surface ships to this regatta and most of them will have more then one ship.

I re-read Tom's e-mail to me...and you are absolutely correct. It was the fly casters.

Regarding the observation that a 'mixed crowd' will be necessary for meeting expenses......I think it's time for the SC to test that assumption. That and the fact that we have a *very* large population of members in California. This can be a good way to see how serious folks are about attending a regatta that is located much closer to home!

I would like to see this myself, we have a lot of talent on the west coast but it seems to be hidden away and rarely seen at the few regattas held in southern California.There is much more going on up north and I can only attribute it to the climate, which keeps people indoors working on subs and gathering for meetings.I have grown very frustrated in recent years as to the lack of participation and interest in possible submarine events and in fact I have given up on trying to organize events because everyone sees it is a good idea but when it comes to assuming a role in the affair, everyone is too busy for all sorts of reasons and the workload ends up falling into the lap of the one who proposes the idea. Everyone has advice or a complaint but no one wants to do the work.My hat is off to Tom and all the hard work he does to put these shows together and in fact I feel for any one who organizes a show, I have done it for a few years and it is ####!End of rant.

Congratulations Tom, on getting the venue this year. It is a truly nice place to run models.

It's a shame you decided to exclude those of us who like to run surface models. From a purely selfish perspective, I enjoyed running there. I found out about model submarining at a general regatta, down in San Diego from Mike Dory, and ended up joining the Subcommittee because of it, maintaining my membership since I have learned a lot from the SCR.

Quite a few people that have regularly attended this regatta in the past will not be going this year, including some model submariners who also enjoy running surface ships. Some vendors will also be passing on the event. By limiting attendenance you reduce the potential sales base, so it becomes hard to justify a trip to one of the most expensive areas in the country. The Flycasting ponds are not a particularly public venue, so you will not get as much walk by business as you might if it was held lakeside at Spreckels.

Again, I understand the appeal of having an insular event, but will regret missing an enjoyable couple of days that have become somewhat of a tradition.

I respect your opinion, but must disagree. There has been a West Coast submarine event for many years now, the SF Military Regatta. It was supported by the Mare Island Chapter, and drew a large crowd of submariners from as far as Colorado and Washington. When you say folks have been calling for a sub-only regatta on the West Coast, may I respectfully ask who? Was there a single member out there who looked at this regatta, and said, "I would be there, if only they forbid surface warships from showing up?" Does having a surface warship at an event pollute it? I would think that it would be a welcome bit of ambiance and realism at the least.

Yes, of course the Subcommittee should support the hobby of model submarining. I guess we disagree how to best support it. I feel that exposing the hobby to the maximum number of people would be in it's best interests, as opposed to limiting it to those who have already heard of it. But again, that is just my opinion, and I respect those who disagree with it.

I flew out to the SF Military show from Minnesota a few weeks after the 9-1-1 attacks and it was definitely worth it as the first really fun thing I had done since that horrific day.

I enjoyed seeing all the models and meeting the West Coast RC sub crowd in person. Tom Anderson, Steve Reichmuth, Mike Dory, Dr. Dave, Dave Manley, Micro sub expert Mark Jones, Kurt Greiner, Lee Upshaw, Britt Boyette, Tom Spettel from Colorado and many notables that I had only corresponded with via email or read about in the SC Report.

The flycasting ponds are great - even though they are manmade, the bottom has a more natural look than similar, more swimming pool-like venues.

The weather in SF set a record high temp that day, I think it was 90+ degress and we had a great time. I am going to try to make it again this year!

I didn't mind the surface models since they were all military AND it was fun running target solutions on them and driving under them and it made for some cool photos - but since Tom is running the show - I feel it's his call.

I'm sure surface guys will have something to say about being excluded. If not them, at least the vendors who will lose business. But I guess this is the start of the 3 Subregatta format that's been kicked around. I happen to like surface ships and subs together, but I guess some folks don't.

I would like to thank Ode Touye, a new member of the Subcommittee for sending letters, faxing and calling the city parks and recreations to secure use of the casting ponds for the next few years.

He assumed a role in this affair and he will not be able to attend to event. As a new member he did not want to see this event moved from the casting ponds. My hat is off to Ode and Tom and all the hard work they did to organize this show.

I for one, will miss the surface craft. I really ejoyed watching and driving some of the boats that showed up as well as the submarine group. Where else would I ever have got the chance to drive a 1/8 scale Aircraft Carrier, (for hours), when my sub ended up FUBAR? Nowhere, except at the SF Military Regatta. This is in no way saying anything bad about what Tom has done with this years event, way to go Tom! I'm only saying that I will truely miss them and their Skippers. Meeting both the sub and skimmer Skippers and getting to hang around with all of them while having a blast, was important than anything else.